Girl, 4, who found 220,000,000-year-old fossil gets museum display named after her

A four-year-old girl who discovered a footprint of a dinosaur unknown to archaeologists has had a museum display named in her honour.

 

Little Lily Wilder spotted the 220 million-year-old print fossilised in a rock while on a seaside stroll on the Welsh coast with her family in January this year.

 

 

Lily was looking for shells with dad Richard, 47, at Bendricks Bay near Barry, when she saw the footprint.

 

"Daddy, look at this," she shouted, drawing her father's attention.

 

 

Archaeologists hailed it as the most impressive dinosaur footprint found in the UK in the last two decades and of international importance.

 

Experts were left fascinated and equally puzzled over the "absolutely pristine" fossil that belonged to a two-footed dinosaur, whose species they have not yet been able to identify.

 

 

They say the 10cm print was made by a "currently unknown herbivorous dinosaur" that stood about 75cm tall and 2.5m long.

 

Today, July 21, the discovery went on display at National Museum Cardiff in an exhibition titled "Lily’s Fossil Footprint", with the little girl and her family invited to the opening as guests of honour.

 

On the wall was written, "Fossil Lily" and "Lily's Fossil Footprint".

 

Lily at the exhibition with her name on the wall

 

Lily’s mum Sally, 38, from nearby Llandough, said: "We were thrilled to find out it really was a dinosaur footprint, and I am happy that it will be taken to the National Museum where we can be enjoyed and studied for generations."

 

Sally initially thought an artist had scratched out the fossil into the rocks but as Bendricks Bay is a stretch well-known for dinosaur prints they decided to report the find to officials.

 

To their shock, archaeologists confirmed it was a genuine footprint.

Source: www.lindaikejiblogspot.com

Face-off with a founding father: Brooklyn honours African art by placing it amidst its other collections

Founding fathers: An exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum pairs a Kuba mask from the Republic of Congo with a Gilbert Stuart painting of George Washington
 Brooklyn Museum

 New exhibition seeks to “fill in the blanks that are still present in museums and art history books”

IMAGINE a Kuba mask crafted from rawhide, shells and monkey hair staring impassively at Gilbert Stuart’s stately 1796 painting of George Washington.

CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ARTS AT STELLENBOSCH TRIENNIAL

See the works of African artists at the Stenllenbosch Triennial

Any possible futures for the African continent and the world?

Indigogo by Stacey Gillian Abe. Courtesy of Stellenbosch Triennale

Wura-Natasha Ogunji in performance, 2017. Photo Credit: Miria Sabina Maciagiewicz. Courtesy of Stellenbosch Triennale

The two friends

The two friends

Bura Folktales Legend (Nigeria)

There were two mice and they were true friends. One of the mice was a bush mouse whose name was Yizum. The other was a house mouse whose name was Nkinki. They were sweet friends.

One day the two mice met. Yizum said to Nkinki, "Friend, I want you to come and spend the day with me. Then they went to the bush and entered the house of Yizum which he had dug under a rock. Yizum showed his bed and his rest room to Nkinki and then hurried out to get food for his guest. He brought beans in the hull, the seeds of a tree, peanuts and many kinds of good food. He then sat down and said to Nkinki, Let us eat the food which I have brought." Nkinki gave a sigh of agreement and tasted the food, but it was not sweet to him like the food which he had at home. However, he was brave and ate, even though it was difficult, because if he refused to eat, his friend might say that it was just his mean-ness. 

When they had finished eating, Nkinki said to Yizum, "Friend, I am surprised (swallowed) how you live such a hard life in the bush like this. You have to eat common seeds of trees which are really not food at all. If I should have such a hard life as you have, better had my mother never given birth to me." He made fun of Yizum about his food. When it came time for Nkinki to go home, Yizum decided to go with him to see how he lived and to see the inside of his house. Nkinki said, "I will have to go home." Then Yizum said, "I want to go with you and see the inside of your house."

As they went along the road they talked. When they came into the village they went by a compound and saw a lot of good food just poured out on the ground. They saw mush and meat and bones and dry sprouted corn which it seemed people had thrown away. Because on that day a mourning had been completed for someone. They began to eat, and the food tasted very good to Yizum. He decided in his heart that if he could find a sweet place to live like Nkinki had he would like it, for there was no trouble about food. After a little, while they were eating, they heard a slight sound like something coming, and behold! a cat was creeping up behind them. Before they could turn, the cat was already onto them and about to catch them. They ran with all their might so that the cat would not catch them, but even then the cat almost caught them. Just in time, they saw a hole in the wall of a house and they put themselves in it. Both of them were trembling, because they were very much afraid. The cat had almost caught them. If they had not made their legs go so fast, the cat would have caught them easily.

As soon as Yizum could get his breath, he said, "Yah! Friend Nkinki, if your life is like this in the village, if your insides are like this every day, this place would not be sweet to me, not even for a little. I would rather live in the bush and eat the seeds of the trees. For me, I will go back and live in the bush and be happy." And he went out and ran off into the bush.

The elephant and his slaves

The elephant and his slaves

Bura Folktales Legend (Nigeria)

The elephant went for a walk and a hyena and a dog and a ram followed him because they wanted to become his slaves. The elephant said, "We shall go for six days without drinking water." They went on, and when they saw a pond the hyena said, "I am going to drink." The ram said, "We dare not drink until he tells us that it is time to drink." 

They went on and, after a little, they came to a large body of water with many fish in it. The elephant said, "Let us drink the water." First they said to the dog, "Go and drink." The dog went and drank. Then they said to the hyena, "Go and drink." The hyena went and drank. Then they said to the ram, "Go and drink." The ram went and drank. Then they said to the elephant, "Go and drink." The elephant went and drank. When the elephant realized that all of his slaves had drunk, he drank all of the large body of water. When he had drunk all of the water, there was nothing left but many fish.

The elephant sent his slaves to get wood, and they went and brought wood. There was not enough wood, however, to roast the fish, so the elephant went himself and pulled up a large tree. They roasted the fish, and then the elephant said to the dog, "Go and eat fish." The dog went and ate. He said to the hyena, "Go and eat." The hyena went and ate. He said to "Go and eat." The ram went and ate. Then the the elephant went and ate. The elephant ate all of the fish that were left.

The slaves thanked the elephant and said that they would now be going. After they had gone a little distance, the hyena said, "I will be your master. Let the dog and the ram be my slaves, and we will go three days without drinking water." They started off. When the hyena got hungry, he said to himself, "Look here, I am hungry and there is food back of me." Then they came to a place where they saw some water in a gourd with a few fish in it. The hyena said, "Go, dog, and drink." The dog began to drink, and the hyena said, "You, are you going to drink all of it?" The dog stopped drinking and came back. The hyena said to the ram, "Go and drink." When the ram had drunk but a very little, the hyena said sharply, "Do you want to finish this?" 

The ram stopped drinking. Then the master went and drank the rest of the water and took out the few fish. He said to the dog, "Go and get us wood and let us roast the fish with it." The dog went and got a lot of wood. The hyena said, "You have brought a lot of wood, what are you going to roast with it?" Then they roasted the fish, and the hyena said to his slaves, "Go and eat fish and leave some for me." They went and started to eat, and the hyena said, "Do you want to finish them all?" The dog and the ram stopped eating fish because they feared the hyena. The hyena went and finished the rest of the fish.

They started off again and they came to a place where some men had been eating honey. The ram had a little gourd which he put honey in. The dog found sandals, and he took them. As they went on, the hyena was ahead, the dog behind, and the ram was behind the dog. When they had gone a short distance, the hyena got hungry. He wanted to catch the dog, so he turned and said to the dog, "Why are you going so fast like this? Or do you want to run over me?" They went a little farther, and the hyena still wanted to catch either the dog or the ram, and eat him. When he' whirled to catch one of them, they ran and came to a tree. Behold! there was a lion lying under that tree. 

 The lion jumped up to catch them. They dipped a shoe into the honey and gave it to the lion, and he ate it. When he tasted the sweet, he said, "Give me some more," and they gave him more. But after a little, the honey was finished, and the lion said, "Where did you get a sweet thing like this?" The dog said, "From the hyena." The lion said to the hyena, "Give me some honey." The hyena gave the lion some honey, but it was not sweet. The dog said, "The sweet honey is still in the hyena's stomach." The lion jumped onto and hurt him so that he would give him some of the sweet honey. While the lion was arguing with the hyena, the ram and the dog slipped away and ran. Before the lion looked around, they were out of sight. In this way the dog and the ram were able to get away.

GERMANY'S 50 BILLION EURO FOR ARTISTS

SEE WHAT GERMANY IS DOING FOR SMALL SCALE BUSINESSES AND ARTISTS.

The German federal government is stepping in with a sweeping aid package for the country’s creative and cultural sectors. According to a press release shared by the ministry of culture and reports in the German press, a staggering €50 billion ($54 billion) in backing will be provided specifically to small businesses and freelancers, including those from the cultural, creative, and media sectors.

The news from the ministry comes less than two weeks after Germany first made its promise of support. “We know the hardships, we know the desperation,” said culture minister Monika Grütters in the statement. “The cultural sector in particular is characterized by a high proportion of self-employed people who now have problems with their livelihoods.” She said that the federal government is “wholly aware” of the importance of the creative industries, adding that “[h]elp is coming as quickly and with as little bureaucracy as possible!”

The three-part package, according to the ministry’s statement and a report in FAZ, includes up to €50 billion ($54 billion) in aid for individuals who are self-employed as well as for small businesses, and this will extend to artists and small cultural businesses. They state the funding will come in the form grants designed to help with overhead costs like venue rentals and artist studios. Loans will also be available within the package to help businesses bridge financial bottlenecks. In addition to arts-related individuals and organizations, the funding will support media enterprises, including newspapers.

In addition to the stimulus money, it states that social security (including unemployment insurance) will be made available to freelancers for a period of six months. With this, expenses for housing will be recognized to ensure that “everyone can stay in their own home.” To this end, the government is injecting another €10 billion ($11 billion) of support. The legislation also allows tenants to be protected from eviction should they be unable to pay rent. Loans may also be deferred, and individuals are permitted to ask the tax bureau for a reduction in their payments or an advance on their tax refunds. [Two artists have told Artnet News that the application is actually “highly bureaucratic” with several forms and over 60 pages of small print.]

Today, England’s art council announced a package of $190 million in support to the arts. In New York, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is calling on the government to give US museums a $4 billion bailout.

The emergency legislation will have important implications for publicly funded institutions and museums. The government says that reclamations of funding are to be avoided in the event that projects cannot be implemented. Instead, the government will try to tailor existing budgets and adapt funded programs to suit the current needs.

“Our democratic society needs its unique and diverse cultural and media landscape in this historical situation, which was unimaginable until recently,” said Grütters. “The creative courage of creative people can help to overcome the crisis. We should seize every opportunity to create good things for the future. That is why the following applies: artists are not only indispensable, but also vital, especially now.”

Update March 26: An earlier version of this article misstated that the applications for loans for small businesses were already open for submissions. The article has been updated to include complaints about the application process.

Update March 27: The government has clarified a point of confusion in its press release and previous reports in the media, stating that the aid package for small businesses and freelancers in culture, art, and media will come from a larger package for solo self-employed people and small businesses that totals €50 billion
(c)news.artnet.com

Coronavirus in Nigeria

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) shared the news on their Twitter on Tuesday.  March 24, 2020

There are Now 42 Confirmed Cases of Coronavirus in Nigeria

One of those cases in from Lagos, bring the total in Lagos to 29, and the other in Ogun, with a total of 3 in the south-western state.

NCDC reports that one of the cases is a returning traveller, while the other a contact of a previously confirmed case.